Review: THE MOCKINGBIRDS by Daisy Whitney

October 16, 2010

The Mockingbirds
Author: Daisy Whitney
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Pages: 339
ISBN: 9780316090537
Publication date: 2 November
Review book source: I requested an ARC from the publisher

Summary
From the publisher: Themis Academy is a quiet boarding school with an exceptional student body that the administration trusts to always behave the honorable way–the Themis way. So when Alex is date-raped during her junior year, she has two options: stay silent and hope someone helps her, or enlist the Mockingbirds–a secret society of students dedicated to righting the wrongs of the student body.

My thoughts
Daisy Whitney is herself a rape survivor, and that makes the story feel so real, especially as Alex struggles to define what Carter did to her as rape even though she can’t remember it at first and didn’t fight back every moment throughout. But this book isn’t dark and soul-crushing in the way some books about rape or abuse are: Alex only remembers bits and pieces of that night, and her recollection of it unfolds as the rest of the story does. The Mockingbirds is about Alex understanding what happened to her, but moving forward and not defining herself by it. It’s about her becoming strong enough to stand up against not just her attacker, but against all of the horrific things women are told–that she was asking for it; that she deserved it; that she didn’t say “no” so there’s an implied “yes;” that if she chose to sleep with one guy, there’s no way she can say no to another.

And really, Alex only very reluctantly wants to move forward with the case, but by the end of the book, she’s doing it for people who will come after her, not for personal vengeance, and she learns to understand the importance of seeking justice for others, too. Occasionally the book felt like a vehicle for a message, but given that this is an issue-driven book and that Alex’s story is inspired by Daisy Whitney’s own, that’s not surprising and it’s not heavy-handed. Additionally, the writing’s natural and moves along at a good pace, and the dialogue especially flows well.

The one thing that didn’t sit right for me with this book was the Mockingbirds’ methods leading up to the case. Using the attendance system, they take away Carter’s off-campus privileges, they deny him birthday cake, and they conspire to have his water polo match against the school’s biggest rival canceled–all before he’s determined guilty. They justify this by saying that if he’s found innocent, they’ll reinstate all of his privileges and even give him a voice within the Mockingbirds, and I can understand how Alex would want to see him immediately punished, but especially since such a big deal is made of the checks and balances the Mockingbirds have instituted, their treatment of the accused seemed wrong.

However, I think that this dissonance in how justice was carried out will actually make this a better book for book group discussions. Not only will participants be able to engage in conversation about rape and date rape and consent and respecting one another and how girls and women are sexualized, they can also cover topics like vigilante justice and what makes a fair trial and what just punishment is for people who are found guilty of sexual assault. Because really, I was also bothered by how light Carter’s punishment was. I’m not even sure that he’ll see what he did to her as wrong; he may just always think of her as the girl who forced him off the water polo team, you know? If this was going to be a clear-cut right and wrong issue book, I would have liked to have seen Carter grow, too, not just Alex.

I’ve seen complaints in other reviews about how there were no adults for Alex to turn to and that that isn’t realistic or something we want to tell teens, but just drawing on my own experiences as a teen, I think it’s easy to feel completely alone with no adult who would understand and help, even if that’s not actually the case. And while some reviewers have expressed incredulity that adults wouldn’t spring forward to help Alex, the truth is that getting justice in on-campus rape cases is still difficult.

The Mockingbirds derive their name from Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, and there are references to it and parallels between the books throughout, so this would be a good choice for high school classrooms or for book groups who want to read two related books and discuss them. And if you’re looking for another book where a teen rape survivor uses the piano to move past what happened to her, check out Safe by Susan Shaw. It’s more about the emotional trauma the character served and her initial denial that anything’s wrong and then her slow recovery process rather than examining rape, consent, and justice in a societal context, but there’s nothing explicit in it.

I think that The Mockingbirds has some flaws, but I think it’ll transcend those flaws to become a favorite of discussion groups and classrooms, and I can definitely see it even going on to win awards.

More reviews

• One Sparkling Star
• Ramblings of a Wannabe Scribe
• Stacked
• Abby (the) Librarian
• Goodreads

Bonus
Check out this interview with Daisy Whitney about the cover and this more general interview.

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Tags: daisy whitney, reviews, ya lit